


Shine A Light

by layna_lass



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon, F/M, Friendship, Slow Burn, Understanding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 17:51:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11994912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/layna_lass/pseuds/layna_lass
Summary: ❝ 'cause i was lost at seawhile the waves were dragging me underneath ❞Jughead Jones has been invisible for so long





	Shine A Light

Jughead isn't used to being seen.

People notice him, of course. They take a step back when he walks into the room, eye him in a way that asks  _what are you doing here,_ school their faces into hostile masks that warn him to stay away, stay away, stay away.

He knows why. He's used to watching, sitting in his corner and letting the world unfold around him until he sees words etched into every shadow, every hollow, every line. They're familiar, known. Predictable. He is not. He keeps his words close to himself, wraps them around him in layers. They paint their intentions on their skin, as if they don't care that the whole world sees it. He doesn't give as freely as they do--glancing, touching, whispering. _What goes on in that head?_ they wonder. He doesn't trust them with it. They don't trust him. 

It's a fair trade, logically. Jughead can acknowledge that. What else could he expect?

So he collects his words and pieces them together, tries to make sense of the world on a sheet of paper. He lets people let go of him--his mom, his dad, Archie--and he lets the wounds scab over and scar because he's human and it's okay that it hurts. Sometimes, even he forgets that he exists, so lost in a world that is deep and vast and full of questions he doesn't have answers to. He lets himself disappear.

But she doesn't.

At first she is only a ghost, drifting in and out like everyone else, here for no more than a moment. But then he walks into Pop's one night and she _sees_ him, past even Archie Andrews, and it takes his breath away. She comes into his life in full, solid and tangible, and she doesn't leave. She doesn't let go.

It feels like snow sometimes, soft and flawlessly beautiful, and so bright that he doesn't care how fast it melts as long as he can hold it for just a moment. The way she finishes his sentences, as if she's learned the roads his mind takes. The way she brings his favorite snack from the vending machine when they work late hours, a gesture so small but telling him _I think of you_. The way she doesn't let him fade into the background, slip through the cracks.

Eventually, it feels like the ground under his feet, steady with a pressure that promises not to go anywhere. They become a rhythm, easy and instinctual, filling in the gaps for each other. He lets himself touch and glance and whisper, because when she looks at him she does not see the words others have built around him, or even the ones he has built around himself. She has no box she needs him to fill. She has no shape she wants him to fit. She simply sees.

Then it feels like air, like blood in his veins, and it terrifies him how much he needs it. It terrifies him how  _much_ she sees, and he is afraid he's not brave enough to keep it. But he doesn't know how he could ever go back, and when he thinks of his walls and his corners he knows they will drown him. So he brings himself into the light she has offered him, shows her all the parts of him that are twisted and wrong, and his pulse is a prayer that thrums with  _please stay, please stay, please stay._

She does.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Songspiration is "Shine A Light" by BANNERS and if you haven't heard it yet I don't know what you're doing with your life. Ironically enough another incredible author (writing_as_tracey) has a fic of the same song so I guess it really fits our darling Bughead (I'd come up with the title before I saw hers so no spoofing I promise but y'all should definitely check out her works because they're amazing). 
> 
> This was originally going to be part of my Bughead Missing Moments series but the style didn't really fit and it ended up doing something all on its own. I hope you guys liked it ^_^
> 
> Thanks for reading, loves! XOXOXO


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